


Healing Touch

by Neyasochi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Body Worship, Bottom Keith (Voltron), Hand Jobs, M/M, Massage, Nipple Play, Physical Intimacy, Prize Fighter Shiro, Top Shiro (Voltron), Touching, massage therapist keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:01:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyasochi/pseuds/Neyasochi
Summary: Shiro is a prize fighter who makes a living throwing and taking punches in Zarkon's underground arena; Keith is the massage therapist who helps put him back together afterward.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 58
Kudos: 775





	Healing Touch

**Author's Note:**

> From a thread I started on twitter, [found here!](https://twitter.com/neyasochi/status/1225084825020903424)

Sendak goes down, but not without one hell of a fight.

Shiro rocks as the mountainous bulk of Sendak’s unconscious body hits the mat, cheers engulfing the underground ring where he fights. Where he reigns, really, for whatever that’s worth.

There’s no celebration in the ring— no trophy belt, no thrown favors, no referee triumphantly holding Shiro’s hand up in the air as he’s declared the Champion once more— but that’s fine by Shiro. All he needs is his prize money and he’s done for the night. For the week. Maybe longer, depending on how far he can stretch his winnings.

He weaves on his feet as he slips from the ring and shoulders through the crowd, uninterested in sticking around to watch Zarkon’s staff struggle to move Sendak. In the arena’s dingy excuse for a locker room, Shiro hastily takes stock of himself as he changes— soreness under the wrappings around his wrist and ankles, dribbles of blood from a split lip and a slice along his brow, fresh bruises everywhere else. His back is sore and friction-burned from Sendak ploughing him down into the mat and then dragging him by one twisted arm; there’s a sharp sting in his left knee that worsens as the high of adrenaline fades, too.

Still breathing hard, Shiro peels off his sweat-dampened nylon shorts and trades them for another pair— short, soft, the heather grey cotton fitting easily under his baggy, well-worn sweatpants. He steps into his trainers and zips a jacket over his bare torso, eager to put distance between himself and Sendak, who will eventually wake in a frothing rage. On the way out, Shiro collects the wad of cash he’s owed from the bar, tucks it into a pocket, and throws a warning glare backward over his shoulder at anyone who might think to follow him out onto the streets in the hopes of robbing him blind.

Even with short, gingerly steps, his smarting knee gives him trouble. It’s not a new concern— Shiro doubts if there’s anything left of him that hasn’t been bruised or broken at one point or another— and by now, he knows how to gauge the severity of his own wounds.

The knee might be an easy fix, in the right hands. His head is still fogged from a few ringing blows to his jaw and temple, but he’s taken worse and gotten away without a concussion. The split above his left eyebrow might need stitches, though. Might not. Hard to tell until he can get in front of a mirror and really get a good look.

The city streets are dark and slick from a fresh rain, wetly shining back the neon of late-night clubs and the changing traffic lights. While Shiro waits at a crosswalk, prosthetic hand curled around the roll of several thousands in his pocket, he pulls out his phone and punches out a hasty text.

_Hey, have any time for me tonight?_

Shiro nibbles his bottom lip as he stares at the crack-veined screen, hopeful despite the hour. Keith is a night owl, and more than once Shiro’s managed to catch him on his way back from a midnight workout or a late-night eatery. With a fistful of cash and another hard won victory over the biggest asshole to frequent Zarkon’s arena, Shiro is feeling lucky.

He’s halfway through the crosswalk when his phone lights up with Keith’s incoming text.

_if you don’t mind coming to my place_

Shiro does a double-take, nearly tripping over the curb as he sets off down another street. He’d never taken Keith for the type to invite clients over, to share any part of his life outside of his work— not that Shiro is opposed in the slightest, especially if it’s more convenient.

_Sure. Address?_

Keith answers him in a second or less, giving Shiro a building, a password for the lobby, an apartment number.

_I’ll be waiting_

Shiro diverts course without a second thought, nevermind that his joints are aflame and Keith’s building is three times the distance of the train station Shiro had been heading toward.

The sidewalks are mostly empty, and what few people Shiro crosses paths with give him a wide berth. It might be his size that does it, broad-shouldered and well over six feet tall since he was fourteen. Or maybe it’s the blood drying on his chin and forehead. Or the scars. Or the metallic glint of his prosthetic hand, which is about as subtle as walking around with a pair of brass knuckles.

And while all the above-the-board fighting arenas have banned high-functioning prosthetics like his as unduly advantageous, wantonly devastating, and potentially lethal, the crowds that flock to Zarkon’s ring are drawn for the very same reasons.

Keith’s building is all vine-covered brick, twelve or thirteen stories tall and shabby with age. Shiro stops to pet a stray cat lounging on the steps leading up to the lobby door, scritching under its chin until it grows tired of the attention and scampers toward a garden-level apartment door.

Keith’s place is on the seventh floor. Of course. And while Shiro would normally opt for the stairs, the fact that he is rapidly becoming a walking bruise prompts him to endure a very screechy, stop-and-go elevator ride instead.

He knocks softly against the door for unit 701 and then stands back, hands shoved into his jacket pockets as waits on the faint clinking of chain locks being slid out of place and bolts turning.

The door creaks open. Gold-hued light spills out around a familiar silhouette, all lean and sleek where he leans against the wall of the narrow entrance.

“Must’ve been a rough match,” Keith greets, and that’s how Shiro knows he really and truly looks like shit.

“Sendak.” It’s all that needs to be said. Sendak— and his oversized prosthetic, too— has a reputation for viciousness, even among the brawling types who gravitate to underground pits like Zarkon’s.

Keith winces sympathetically and steps back, drawing the door open wider to welcome Shiro in.

It’s a tiny apartment, but Keith’s made it his own. The combined kitchen and living room space is about the size of Shiro’s bedroom at home, but the art pinned to the walls and the touches of exposed brick give it a good look. The furniture is stylistically disjointed, clearly picked up from curbsides and dirt-cheap sales. Rows of small cacti and succulents line the window in colorful plastic pots.

“Never seen your place before,” Shiro says, stating the obvious. He toes off his sneakers and leaves them with the other shoes lined up by the door, his trainers a good two sizes bigger than anything Keith wears.

“Never invited a client over before,” Keith says, shrugging a shoulder. He flashes a friendly smile, though; that happens more and more these days. “You can set your stuff down wherever. Then go stand over there,” he directs, pointing to the kitchen sink.

Shiro does as told, too tired to even wonder why Keith wants him in the kitchen.

The directions fall into place when Keith returns with a tiny, well-used first-aid kit and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, setting both on the kitchen counter while he beckons Shiro to bend down.

“Oh, shit. You don’t have to do anything, Keith. I can deal with it when I get home,” Shiro says, resisting Keith’s expectant, impatient look. He’s spent plenty of early mornings hunched over his bathroom sink, breaths fogging up the mirror as he sews bits of himself back together. “I’m not even bleeding that much.”

“We have different definitions of how much blood is too much,” is all Keith says as he hooks a finger in Shiro’s collar and draws him down, bent-shouldered over the sink. “I’d normally do something like this in the bathroom, but it’s too small for both of us to fit.”

“Kitchen’s fine by me,” Shiro says, turning his head as Keith starts dabbing at the drying blood along his brow with a damp cotton. He eyes the handful of dishes sitting in the bottom of the sink— a whiskey glass, a plastic bowl, a pair of chopsticks— and the pink hippo scrubby brush perched by the soap. “I like your hippo, by the way.”

“Thanks. They’re getting harder and harder to find,” Keith idly comments, more focused on wiping away the darkening smears of blood across Shiro’s chin and forehead.

Shiro smiles through his sore jaw, grateful for Keith’s careful hands cleaning him up and his nimble fingers giving him just a few quick stitches. He’s grown used to bandaging himself up— adept at it, even— but there’s no denying that Keith’s steady hand does cleaner work than what Shiro could do to himself.

“Looking better already,” Keith says as he boxes his supplies back up and pushes the first-aid kit aside.

“Thanks,” Shiro says,digging two fingers into his jacket pocket. He fishes out the thick fold of his cash winnings and peels off five crisp bills.

“This covers my rent for the month,” Keith says as Shiro hands them over, another smile creeping onto his lips. Surprised. Pleased. A little shy of being handed so much at once. “Are you sure about that, big spender?”

“Consider it a tip,” Shiro shrugs as he tucks the rest of the money back into his jacket. “For your convenient ER services.”

“I’m a regular one-stop shop,” Keith jokes in that low, pleasing rasp of his, like honey over sand. He ducks past Shiro and slips into his bedroom, leaving the door wide open as he hides the money inside a bedside drawer.

Shiro pointedly glances away, staring at a spot on the wall. Keith doesn’t seem to mind him seeing where his money’s kept— same as Shiro doesn’t feel at all uneasy pocketing several thousand dollars in front of Keith, either— but it still feels a bit like spying on something he shouldn’t.

“Come here and we’ll start working on the rest of you,” Keith says as he emerges from the bedroom, tapping a toe against the center of a faded cowhide in the middle of his tiny living room.

Shiro obeys at once, a heavy, grateful sigh moving through him. It doesn’t take much to cross the room and stand before Keith, square in the middle of the space he’s opened up by pushing the few pieces of furniture he has toward the walls.

Shiro stands about a head taller than Keith, which makes it easy to admire the silky shine of his dark hair, the long fan of his eyelashes as he studies Shiro’s bruised body, and just how easy it would be to fit Keith under his chin, folding him in close.

“Let’s get this off of you,” Keith says, already taking the reins. He pulls at the zipper of Shiro’s jacket, baring a wider and deeper vee of bare chest and belly. Once Shiro’s jacket hangs open, Keith slides his hands under the material and slips it off of his broad frame.

Shiro shrugs to help himself out of it, eyes trailing after Keith as he neatly folds the black jacket in half and hangs it over the back of the lone chair at a tiny breakfast table. He hooks his thumbs into his sweats and pushes them down, kicking them aside once they pool at his ankles.

Laid bare but for a pair of loose track shorts, Shiro tilts his head from side to side and waits for Keith to start.

But first Keith walks a circle around him, sizing Shiro up. Reading the fresh bruises and still-red marks where fists laid into his skin. Studying the way Shiro’s weight has settled down into his feet, slightly uneven as he nurses his sore knee.

“Would you rather sit?” Keith questions as he pushes up the sleeves of his red henley.

“I’m fine to stand for now,” Shiro says, knowing it makes it easier for Keith to do the work he does.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Keith tells him, as usual.

He starts with Shiro’s right shoulder, as he does most sessions, fingers pressing into the sunburst of fanned-out laceration scars and knotted skin from a dozen surgeries. Keith has always been direct like that, readily squaring up with the piece of Shiro that everyone else prefers to dance around.

Months of regular, diligent massage have worked wonders for loosening up the stiff scar tissue that runs deep through Shiro’s muscles. He can swing his right arm into opponents faster, harder, with more control and less of the lancing pain he’d grown used to. The persistent ache in the joint that once kept Shiro tossing and turning through the night has dwindled down to almost nothing, worked away bit-by-bit by Keith’s firm, practiced touch.

He exhales deep through his nose as Keith’s hands chart a familiar path, feeling out the state of his trapezius, his deltoid, his teres minor, his latissimus dorsi. Callused fingers lay deep into Shiro, pressure sinking down through inches of tensed muscle and tendon.

“Any pain?”

The corner of Shiro’s mouth curls, his eyes still closed. “Not in my shoulder, no.”

Keith grunts in acknowledgement, pleased with that much. His hands veer toward the wide planes of muscle that span Shiro’s back, noting all the tender places where Shiro makes the most miniscule of flinches.

There’s a pause, a bereft moment without Keith’s touch, and the quiet clinking of a bottle being unscrewed.

The smell of camphor, menthol, and cinnamon-cloves is welcome and familiar, as much associated with Keith as it is with receiving relief and comfort. Shiro’s back tingles where Keith smoothes the balm over his skin, the heel of a slender palm dragging slow and purposeful over muscle still wound rigidly tight from five rounds of no-holds-barred combat.

Shiro’s insides tingle like they’ve gotten a taste of tiger balm, too, as Keith’s strong, sinewy arms wind around his middle and lock tight. He settles his weight into his heels and relaxes into Keith’s hold, trusting he’ll be supported; and Shiro doesn’t worry for a moment when Keith gently hoists him up, his bare toes dangling an inch or two off the ground, and stretches his spine.

Shiro grins as Keith gently sets him back down, as light on his feet as an astronaut. Keith’s strength and impeccable balance don’t surprise him anymore, but they still impress.

“You always seem to enjoy that,” Keith mutters as he rounds his way to Shiro’s front again. His gaze stays lowered as he gathers up Shiro’s larger hand into both of his own, the shadow of a smile on his lips as he delicately squeezes his way up sore fingers and scraped knuckles.

“It’s fun to be lifted without being thrown across a ring after,” Shiro says, flexing his hand once Keith moves on to examine his wrist. “Not a lot of people would even attempt to pick me up.”

Keith’s eyebrows rise a fraction, but he doesn’t comment.

Months ago, when Keith and his skilled hands first found Shiro, he’d taken the time to explain every touch he made. He’d talked Shiro through _everything,_ though it left his voice scratchy by the end. He’d listened to all of Shiro’s nervous little side comments, considered them, adjusted accordingly. Keith understood— even the things Shiro can’t boil down into words, the worries that only show in the tensing of his spine or the unconscious clench of his jaw.

Now, they know each other well enough for silence.

It’s the easy kind of quiet, companionable rather than awkward, punctuated with hums and small talk and the occasional check-in. Shiro knows what to expect when he surrenders himself over to Keith’s kind of care; even when he doesn’t, he trusts Keith to do right by him.

Keith starts in on Shiro’s forearm, massaging up and down until the strain of so many blocks and forcefully-thrown left hooks fades from every tendon. It takes both of his hands to curl around Shiro’s bicep next, strong fingers and thumbs stroking away aches fresh and old alike.

It feels like Keith is putting him back together, realigning every bone and joint knocked out of place. Making Shiro comfortable in his own skin again, his body more like it was before the ring, before the crash, before his hair had abruptly begun going white as stress ravaged him.

There’s a slight pop as Keith folds Shiro’s arm across his chest and squeezes around him, stretching the joint of his shoulder.

Shiro groans. “Getting creaky in my old age.”

“Aren’t you like thirty?” Keith snorts.

“Thirty-two,” Shiro sighs as Keith does the same with his other arm, crushing the limb tight to his chest as strong, lean arms lock around him. It’s almost a hug— albeit an awkward one, and only meant to help loosen his chest and shoulder.

“You’re in better shape than most people I work on,” Keith says. “Damage from the ring notwithstanding.”

“Thanks. Maybe I’ll have enough saved to retire from it soon,” he muses. It’s not a way of life he can keep up forever, regardless of Keith’s kind opinion of his health. Still… living isn’t cheap and his disability compensation from the military barely covers his prescriptions and old medical debt. “Do something else to pay the bills.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. Before the fall, he’d always pictured himself in the clouds, among the stars; after, looking too far forward only brought disappointment. “Something else.”

“You’d make a good personal trainer,” Keith says, shrugging. “It’s what covers most of my expenses. When I don’t have you coming by at two in the morning and dropping half a grand in my lap, anyway.”

“You deserve it.” No one else takes care of him like Keith does. There’s no one else Shiro would trust to, honestly. 

Keith’s hands feel their way up Shiro’s ribs, taking in every ridge of bone and muscle and patch of skin still marked an angry red from skidding across the textured surface of the fighting mat. His hands settle over the broad, spanning curves of Shiro’s pecs, the chest under his palms quickening with a sharp, deep breath. He pushes the heel of his palm into Shiro’s flesh, hard enough to be felt deep down into the muscle, and rolls it in measured little circles.

“How does that feel?” Keith asks after a few minutes have lapsed, Shiro’s left pec jiggling under his touch as the motion picks up.

Shiro closes his eyes and curls his bottom lip in, biting back the low moan that threatens to slip out of him. “Good. Still good.”

 _Too_ good, maybe, but that’s always the case when Keith’s hands are on him. Deft fingers coax shudders down Shiro’s spine and pleasure out of pain. Keith’s figured him out; he always knows just how to wring the ache out of him, to drain the tension from his limbs like it’s as easy as letting blood.

For a while, Shiro feels whole again, and new, and comfortable in his scarred, bruise-patterned skin, even. The tenderness in Keith’s touch makes him yearn for more than his prize money can buy— quiet intimacy, love to accompany the laying of hands, days and weeks and months of Keith’s time and attention.

It doesn’t help that Keith is the way he is, either. Quietly clever. Mysterious. Attractive, in the physical sense and the gravitational sort, his presence inexorably pulling Shiro toward him. 

Toward those pale lips and the sharp mouth they frame, a distinct point to his canines and a delicate tip to his tongue. To his narrow jaw and strong, expressive brows and the slight indent of a nose that’s been broken once or twice before. Black hair that falls in the prettiest waves and razor-cut pieces, the faint scent of camellia always distracting when Keith steps in close; those unruly strands that tickle against Shiro’s chin or the hollow of his throat. Eyes that burn despite their dark, cool tint, indigo in daylight and a sultry violet in shadow.

His strength. The ease of his movement. Those long, lean legs. The skillful hands currently settled around Shiro’s waist, thumbs pressing into his obliques and along his iliac furrow.

Shiro squeezes his closed eyes shut even tighter, his hands curling into loose fists. He drags his thoughts back from the track they’d slipped down so easily, the way they do time and again.

It’s just business between him and Keith. Friendly business, but nothing more.

“Let’s sit you down while I do your legs.”

A hand settles into the dip at the small of Shiro’s back and guides him toward an armless, out-of-date chair upholstered in red velvet. It feels like some of the stuffing in the seat has shifted over the years, but it’s comfortable. Taking the weight off of his feet and sore joints is nice, too.

And Shiro is never quite ready for the sight of Keith dropping down to his knees in front of him, dark eyes shining bright where they look up at him through a fringe of heavy lashes and silky pieces of hair.

“How’s this ankle been?” Keith questions, a hand wrapping around the back of Shiro’s left calf and gliding down to the troublesome joint.

The skin around it is still faintly indented from the wrap Shiro had used during the fight; ugly, faded bruises stretch from the top of his foot all the way up his shin. And Keith is nothing but gentle as he squeezes along the delicate curve of Shiro’s ankle, over the swell of bone and the taut stretch of his Achilles tendon.

“It’s been behaving,” Shiro says, a sigh slipping out of him as Keith’s thumbs press up into the arch of his foot. “I think you cured my tendonitis for good.”

Keith’s pale lips curve up into a slight smile, satisfied.

“It’s mostly been my knee acting up,” Shiro continues, a drowsy relaxation seeping through him as Keith straightens out his leg, braces Shiro's bare foot against his shoulder, and starts massaging his calf. 

He can feel every shift Keith makes through the sole of his foot, all the muscle flexing under Keith's red henley as he plies his fingers into the tight, sore muscle along Shiro’s lower leg. Warm breath even tickles along Shiro's ankle whenever Keith turns his head, ghosting over skin gone warm and tingling in anticipation.

“You’re pretty acrobatic in the ring,” Keith comments, lowering Shiro’s foot back to the cowhide rug that covers the floor. “It’s not easy on your joints or your bones. Or your anything, really.”

Shiro hums in ready agreement. He’s always been fit, spry, but the residual sting of every hard impact lingers longer these days.

Keith’s thumbs press into the sides of his knee and stroke up along the connecting tendons, working out the smarting ache that followed from the ring. “Still good?”

“Yes,” Shiro hisses out, draping an arm over his face and hiding in the bend of his elbow.

There’s a dull pain in every firm pass Keith makes, but it lessens by the minute. And it’s the _good_ kind of pain, anyway— the kind that comes married with pleasure and deep-seated relief, every stroke bringing Shiro a step closer to being able to walk out of Keith’s apartment without a limp.

“How did you get so good at this?” he asks as the twinge in his knee slowly vanishes, pushed out by careful, purposeful pressure.

Keith cocks his head, shooting a look up at Shiro from where he kneels between spread knees. “I learned from the best.” 

There’s a moment of silence before Keith continues, his knuckles pushing up and down into the underside of Shiro’s thigh as he starts loosening up the muscle. “Joined up with my mom’s mercenary company for a few years, right out of school. After every sparring session, everyone would pair off for a post-workout massage. To help the body heal better. To relax. To bond.”

Shiro can see the benefit in that. Four months of seeing Keith on the regular has made him feel far closer to the man than he should, his every cell associating Keith with all good things— recovery, respite, refuge.

“They taught me most of what I know, and the rest I learned for myself.” Keith’s shoulders draw up a hair, the slightest bit defensive, and the next look he sends Shiro is shyer, self-conscious. “I’m not a professional or anything, obviously. But you knew that.”

Shiro hums, acknowledging and— he hopes— reassuring. “Doesn’t make you any less amazing at what you do, Keith. I wouldn’t put myself in anyone else’s hands, you know.”

He wouldn’t. He _hasn’t,_ not since the crash that took his arm and the honorable discharge that severed him from the only dream he’d ever put much stock into. Four years without a touch that didn’t come from a doctor or the pummeling of a closed fist… and then came Keith.

Keith drops his chin and ducks his head, but Shiro catches the telltale blush and matching grin before he can hide it. Still on his knees, Keith inches forward and redoubles his focus on the parts of Shiro he hasn’t yet gotten to.

The ever-present traffic outside goes uncharacteristically quiet as Keith’s hands travel up the length of Shiro’s thigh, the tips of his fingers pushing the loose hem of his shorts higher and higher, closer to his hips. Out of the way, like they’re a nuisance.

The pressure over Shiro’s quadriceps is enough to make him purr, but he stifles any wayward sounds well before they reach his lips. He nibbles down on his own tongue as Keith squeezes around him, fingers sinking deep into slackened muscle. Even the splay of both of Keith’s elegantly-fingered hands is nowhere near enough to close around the breadth of his thigh, and so Keith works slowly, methodically, poring over every inch of exposed skin.

Shiro’s eyelids droop. Relaxedness falls over him like a veil that he can’t— and has no desire to— shrug off. His vision doubles and blurs as he watches Keith work, unfocused even as his whole consciousness narrows into one point, one person, one moment that seems to stretch out and out and out.

His mind wanders. It feels like that haze that comes right on the cusp of sleep, only Shiro’s heart is beating too fast for that. His blood is flowing too quick, too hot. And Keith’s hands...

Keith’s hands are still moving over him, a kinetic anchor to the physical world. That firm touch dips inward, strong thumbs smoothing over the defined line of his adductor muscle, tracing it high enough that Shiro holds his breath waiting for Keith’s knuckles to brush against the soft bulge tucked within his rucked up track shorts.

They never do, though. Keith is good about that, keeping just enough distance where he has to. _Regrettably_ good at it, almost.

Something low in Shiro’s belly quickens anyway, coaxed awake by the mere thought of Keith’s skilled hands touching him somewhere else, somewhere new and just as needy for the press of those calloused palms. He can imagine those slim, adept fingers flexing around him; he can almost hear Keith’s voice in his ear, spelling out every little thing he’d do to him in throaty whispers.

A warm wave of desire washes through Shiro, all of it pooling down low in his loins; low and dangerously close to where Keith’s hands are still attentively laboring over the thick muscle of his thighs, every touch stoking the urge that has him stiffening in his shorts.

Shiro’s eyes open halfway, slowly coming aware again of where he is and the arrangement he has with Keith— one of business, not pleasure, regardless of how disarmingly at ease Keith’s expert touch leaves him. Tinges of shame cut his idle, indulgent fantasizing to the quick. And the last thing he would ever want to do is make Keith uncomfortable...

With forced casualness, Shiro shifts until his loosely folded hands cup over the front of his shorts, laced fingers hiding the slight tenting of the heather grey fabric across his lap.

Traces of a cool, nervous sweat break at the edges of the feverish flush blooming across his chest and up the back of his neck, helpfully dampening the arousal he’s desperately hoping Keith is too busy to notice— or at least too merciful to mention, if he does.

“You, um, said you ran with a mercenary group for a while,” Shiro burbles out, hoping to distract both himself and Keith from what’s happening in his shorts. “Sounds like you did some hand-to-hand with them.”

Keith lets out a low, soft grunt in the affirmative. “Kolivan was big on learning hand-to-hand and knife skills, so I practiced both. The Marmora have been around so long that they have their own distinct style. Real dynamic. Intense. Lots of leg locks and grappling. I could… I could show you sometime. If you wanted.” His gaze flits up to Shiro in question, briefly taking in his rosy-tinged complexion.

“Y-Yeah,” Shiro croaks out, pleasantly taken aback by the offer. An offer from Keith. To grapple. “I’d love that. Always up to learn more.” 

Keith nods, the corner of his mouth giving the slightest tug. “Same. Martial arts have been one of my core interests for about as long as I can remember. Gymnastics, too. Pretty much anything physical, I guess,” he shrugs.

“I started when I was five or six, maybe? I was always tumbling around the house, pretending I was a Power Ranger, and I guess my dad figured hapkido would be good for burning off some of that energy. So, he taught me what he knew,” Keith says, both the words and his private little smile warm with affection. “And the wrist locks really came in handy in some of the group homes I got stuck in later on,” he adds, a little wry.

It’s a lot all at once, coming from Keith. Shiro’s heart softens and his expression follows suit, sympathy etched into his faint smile, hopelessly endeared for Keith volunteering something so personal. It’s not like they’ve really seen each other outside of their little sessions like these, or sometimes crossing paths in the gym, or the rarest occasions when Shiro glimpses Keith’s face in the crowd amid the blur of a high-stakes fight.

He wonders what it’s like for Keith to watch him like that, in the ring. Circling around in Zarkon’s seedy underbelly of an arena, sweat-sheened and cold-stared. Skidding across the mat before rolling up to his feet in one sinuous movement. Hitting his opponents in a flurry of scar-latticed skin and silvery metal plating, with a knack for taking down fighters twice his weight.

Shiro’s never seen Keith in a sparring match, mid-flight across the ring. He’d like to, though. Up close. Personal. With lots of grappling.

“I’m glad he was able to pass that on to you,” Shiro says, softly. And then, a little lighter, “Can’t imagine many kids would want to wrangle with you after being on the receiving end of a joint lock.”

“Nah,” Keith agrees, his eyebrows lifting even as his smile settles into a bare line. “They didn’t.”

“My grandfather paid for all my shotokan lessons,” Shiro offers after a few quiet seconds have whiled by, his thoughts drifting back to the smell of aged wood and old sparring mats during hours of practicing his _kata._ “Pretty sure he’d be less than enthused about how I’m putting them to use now, though.”

Not that his current style is what it was when he was seventeen and doing weekend tournaments with his club; what he uses in Zarkon’s ring is a bastardization of the strike-based karate he’d proudly performed in front of his grandparents, a brutal but effective mix of shotokan, the CQC drilled into him during his service, and moves picked up from opponents. It’s unique. At times, it’s even ugly.

And it works.

“Maybe he’d understand,” Keith murmurs, tentative, gaze flitting up to Shiro’s to double-check that he’s not overstepping.

“Maybe.” Shiro smiles, sighs, lets his shoulders drop further. “Guess there’s no point worrying about something I’ll never know.”

Keith’s hands pause, hitching mid-stroke. “Sorry.”

“Oh, no, you’re fine,” Shiro says at once, straightening up in the chair. “It’s fine, Keith. I didn’t— I wasn’t trying to be depressing.”

“You’re not. No more than I am, anyway.” Keith shrugs, turns his gaze downward again, and pushes the heel of his palm up Shiro’s inner thigh. “It’s, uh, hard to bring up the past without bringing up people who are gone, too. Doesn’t bother me, though. Not with the right people.”

“Same here.”

Shiro answers Keith’s smile with one of his own and leaves it at that, content with the long silence that wraps around them. Silence punctuated with the city’s constant background noise, anyway.

The licking flames of his earlier arousal have died down into something manageable, thankfully— a residual heat of attraction to Keith, but nothing painfully obvious. Hands continue to rub up and down his leg, checking each joint and swell of muscle for lingering tightness or knots; Keith’s palms glide over the discolored, thickened skin of old burns, paying them just the same attention he does every other inch of Shiro.

Between the late-night minutes dwindling by and the bone-deep gratification of a very thorough massage, Shiro is almost drowsing again by the time Keith stands and gestures for him to rise, too.

Shiro tests his weight on his touchy knee and finds it gives him no trouble at all. There’s a dull, distant twinge of ache— to be expected after the way he’d overexerted himself against Sendak, honestly— but Shiro thinks he could skip all the way home, if he were so inclined.

“Wow. _Wow._ Magic touch, as usual,” Shiro comments as he points his toes and gives a few bounces on the balls of his feet.

Keith turns his head and avoids Shiro’s eyes, trying and failing to keep a smile at bay. He has gifts, undeniably, but taking a compliment doesn’t seem to be one of them.

“Almost done,” Keith says, pacing to the kitchen to wash his hands while Shiro does a few lunges across the small living room, testing out his freshly worked-over limbs.

When Keith steps up to Shiro again, it’s face-to-face. His hands drift up to the sides of Shiro’s head, smelling sweet like candied apples; fingertips brush reddened ears and trail into white-flecked hair, drawing tingles over Shiro’s scalp.

Keith’s thumbs feel down Shiro’s temple and then press gently into the hinges of his jaw, asking him to _open, close, open, close_ as he works the tension free.

“You got clocked in the mouth pretty good,” Keith comments, briefly ghosting over the slight split of Shiro’s bottom lip and the cheek that’s still sore from being crushed into his teeth. “Surprised you don’t have more swelling.”

It must be bruising like ink spilling out under his skin, deep and vivid— an ugly, telltale mark that’ll probably fade just in time for his next match. At least it isn’t a black eye, though.

“Left hook. Knocked me to the mat,” Shiro murmurs, his eyes closed and his lips just barely parted. 

“Mm.” It takes another minute of slow, patient pressure, but eventually the tightness deep in Shiro’s jaw relaxes.

It’s a gradual release of pressure on his back molars, the shock-clench he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying around fading under Keith’s practiced touch. He’d probably have woken up with a throbbing headache if he’d gone straight home.

“Feel better?”

“Like a new man,” Shiro mumbles, then sighs. His eyes flutter open and fall on Keith before anything else, so close with him stood up on tiptoe to better meet Shiro’s height. He’s just a head tilt away, really. He’s just a head tilt away, really. And it’d be so, _so_ easy for Shiro to turn and nose into Keith’s cheek, to dance his bloodied lips over Keith’s chapped skin, to kiss him like he’s wanted for months now. To overstep. To do something he can't undo.

Instead, Shiro settles his weight in his heels and enjoys the feel of warm, dry hands cupped around his head, shivers running down his spine every time one of Keith’s fingers inadvertently brushes over the delicate shell of his ear. “Mm. You really saved me, Keith. Again.”

“Anytime,” Keith says, sporting one of the sweetest smiles Shiro’s ever seen. He traces familiar paths across Shiro's skull, smoothing away whatever stress still clings to him. “As often as you need it.”

“That’s a dangerous offer,” Shiro snorts. “I’d be texting you every day.”

Keith’s smile grows wider, threatening to become a grin, and turns the tiniest bit impish. It’s a cute look on him. “Hm, sounds good for business.”

“I’d push out all your other clientele,” Shiro teases as he stretches up his arms and folds them overhead, delighted in how much better he feels. He has no intention of setting foot back into the ring until he’s hard up for cash, but if he _had_ to, he could go another five rounds right now.

Keith only gives a half-hearted shrug. “I wouldn’t be broken up over it, in this hypothetical.”

Something bright sparks through Shiro’s chest at the sentiment. It’s good to be wanted somewhere, by someone, even if it’s only as a customer.

“Maybe I can see you again tomorrow, then. For a follow-up,” Shiro suggests. It’s half legitimate request, half a stalling measure to stay in Keith’s presence a little longer— though he really shouldn’t be dragging out his last-minute appointment when Keith probably wants him gone so he can get some sleep.

“Yeah. Of course. Whenever you want to stop by, Shiro,” Keith says, head tilting in a way Shiro hopes is fond. “You mean _tomorrow_ tomorrow, right? Not today? It’s, uh, getting pretty late. Lat _er,_ I mean.”

Shiro grabs his jacket from the back of Keith’s chair and checks his phone. He blinks down at the _two-forty-one_ set against his starry lockscreen and wonders if the train closest to his neighborhood is even still running. “Yikes. Shit. Sorry for keeping you up so late.”

“You’re fine, Shiro. I’m officially off the clock,” Keith announces, and the weight he gives the words is curious. He clears his throat a few times, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, and wipes his palms against his joggers before opening his mouth again to say, “Which is why I’m going to say that if you want to stay, you can.”

Shiro stops and stares, hands frozen in the middle of opening up his jacket; he watches Keith draw a breath through his nose and hold it, chest slightly puffed and his shoulders risen taut. “Stay? Here?”

Keith nods, his cheeks blotching with a shade of faint, peachy pink.

Shiro’s hand goes to the back of his own head, raking up through his grown-out fade. The offer is so unexpected, so unbelievable. So much easier to chalk up to a misunderstanding than what Shiro _hopes_ it is. 

He glances around the sparsely furnished living room and wonders if this is Keith simply being hospitable, if he’s only offering because the alternative is Shiro hiking across town at three a.m with six grand in his pocket. “Like… on your futon?”

“No.” Keith’s head tilts invitingly toward the open door to his bedroom, where his red-blanketed bed sits pushed up against an exposed brick wall, the slats of its black iron headboard wrapped in string lights. “There.”

“Oh.” Shiro halfway wonders if maybe he did sustain a mild brain injury in the ring after all; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d daydreamed up something like this, although they’d usually be making out by now. “Are you sure? I mean… I’m a mess, Keith. I look like I just fell down seven flights of stairs.”

And that’s on top of everything else permanently scarred into his skin, his mind, the not-quite-healed heart underneath. Damage that’s lingered for years.

Keith’s lips curl inward as he tries to hold back a fond, understanding smile. His voice is low and slightly rasped when he speaks, choked on some other words that remain unsaid. “Yeah. I’m sure, Shiro. Been sure for a while.”

“I— okay. Then, yeah. _Yes.”_ Shiro drops his jacket back onto the chair without a second thought, his uncertainty no match for Keith’s insistence. He hooks a metallic thumb toward the barely-visible bathroom attached to Keith’s bedroom. “Do you, uh, want me to shower first?”

“No.” Keith’s confidence mounts with every strident step across the room, his eyes fervently locked with Shiro’s as he takes him by the hands and pulls him impatiently toward the bedroom.

“Can’t argue with a man who knows what he wants,” Shiro says as he lets himself be reeled in, breathless for the excitement of it.

“You seem to have a pretty good idea of what you want, too,” Keith says, his grip falling away just long enough for him to smooth back the clingy strands of dark hair framing his heat-flushed cheeks. “When you like something I’m doing, it certainly shows.”

The comment almost goes over Shiro’s head, its meaning lost amid his interest in taking in Keith’s room— the laundry still hung to dry by the window, the drawings tacked to the walls, the round, squishy hippo night lamp on the bedside table. The realization trickles in like snowmelt, shocking Shiro’s blood cold and freezing him in place.

“Wait. When I’m— when you’re massaging me, you mean?”

Keith’s eyes go half-lidded as he nods, the long fan of his lashes almost distracting as he steps in close, slotting a foot between Shiro’s. He pulls his bottom lip in between his teeth, wets it, and lets it slip back out, slightly redder and plumper.

“I mean when you get stiff in your shorts because you like the way I handle you. Or when you bite your tongue to keep from moaning. When you hold your breath and wait,” he whispers, his knuckles brushing featherlight over the dusting of coarse hair that lies between Shiro’s navel and the waistband of his shorts. “Like you are right now.”

Shiro shudders as he exhales, goosepimples rising all up his arms and over his shoulders. “You could tell all that?” he asks, flustered under his rising need and the lingering effects of Keith’s touch. “Every time?”

And through his embarrassment and mild misery, Shiro supposes it makes sense. Keith is an expert at reading him, intuitive when it comes to understanding all the ways his body hurts— and, naturally, just as adept at noticing his pleasure, too.

“Shiro…” Keith’s tone slides from sultry to consoling, his hands cupping gentle over Shiro’s ribs. He peers up at him, slightly perplexed, as though it ought to be painfully obvious. “Of course I did.”

“Oh.” And here Shiro’d thought he’d done a decent job of masking his baser desires.

“Shiro,” Keith picks up, mouth working as he hunts for the right words. There’s kindness in the ones he settles on, but no small amount of exasperated amusement, too. “You’re— Shiro, your dick is _huge._ It doesn’t really take a keen eye to notice. Especially if you’re partial to going commando in cheap sweats and track shorts,” he adds, his gaze sinking low even as his brows rise.

Shiro opens his mouth, but no worthwhile defense comes to mind. He snaps it shut, belatedly mortified, and thinks back over the last half-year. He’s seen Keith dozens of times. Twice a week, sometimes, when he had the cash and the excuse.

“At first, I thought you were like, showing off,” Keith says, laughing softly. “But then I realized you genuinely thought you were hiding it, and I— I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

Shiro takes refuge behind his hands, ignoring Keith’s reassuring little murmurs. “I appreciate it,” he mumbles, well aware that if Keith had ever called him out on having a boner mid-massage, he’d likely have fled out of shame and set about finding a way to launch himself into space. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable on the job.”

“You didn’t,” Keith says, his fingers wriggling in between Shiro’s, tenderly pulling his hands aside. “You made me interested. More interested than I already was. And it was… kinda cute. Honestly.”

“Cute,” Shiro snorts, not yet able to look Keith in the eye.

“And very tempting,” Keith assures him, smiling as he blindly palms off the switch for the overhead light fixture, the bedroom dimming to just the bare glow from the bed’s winding string lights.

About a third of the bulbs have burned out and the rest only seem to glow half as bright as they should. And he’s just as pretty in the semi-darkness, Keith. Deep shadows look good on him. Probably anything looks good on him, but…

There’s something breath-quickening about the way the faint, warm-toned light catches on the heights of his features and puts pinpricks of flame in the wells of his eyes. How he presses in close to Shiro with all the confidence and grace of someone who knows their own body well. Better than most.

Shiro wishes he wasn’t fresh off a fight, all beaten and bruised. His face isn’t total hamburger meat, at least, but he’s certainly not a pretty match for Keith. Not with the split lip and the raw, angry skin. Not with layer upon layer of scar tissue, every old burn and gouge visible for Keith to see.

But as Keith’s hands settle anew on his waist and slowly skim their way upward, Shiro can’t help but melt and be reminded that Keith already knows him bare and vulnerable— that he’s seen him worse-off, even, and only been gentler for it.

And though Shiro has felt Keith’s touch a hundred times before, this feels different. The fingers tracing familiar paths up his ribs and across his shoulders do so wonderingly, admiringly. _Indulgently._ It’s intimate, the way Keith’s hands rove across his bruise-mottled skin now, in the dark of his bedroom. There’s not a drop of professionalism in how he gives Shiro’s left bicep an appreciative squeeze, or in the heated stare that roams high and low over his chest. There's no carefully kept distance here, no shying touch.

“If I didn’t have to worry about making ends meet, I’d work on you for free, you know,” Keith murmurs, letting his hand run slowly down Shiro’s chest, the pads of his fingers trailing down his sternum and the dip between two impressively defined pectorals.

Warmth shoots straight to Shiro’s cheeks and steams his slightly oversized ears, but hopefully the red doesn’t show well in the dark. He laughs, letting out another breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding fast while Keith felt him up and down.

“Really?” Shiro asks, beyond flattered.

Keith hums, nods, murmurs, “For _hours._ I could spend hours on you, Shiro.”

His hand splays over Shiro’s chest, pushing him backward toward the bed at a slow, stalking pace.

The mattress springs make a racket under Shiro’s back as he drops down, settling slightly off-center with his legs hanging over the side. The bed gives another distressed groan as Keith drops a knee to the comforter and clambers over him, gingerly stradling Shiro’s middle.

“You must be exhausted,” he says, caressing a particularly nasty smattering of bruises along Shiro’s forearm. Keith straightens up after, belly stretching taut as he lifts his arms overhead and tugs off his henley, his midnight hair fluffed with static after.

“Yeah. But I think I’m getting my second wind,” Shiro answers, awed by the sight of Keith bare-chested and aglow from the lights strung around the iron twists and bars of the headboard.

For all the hours Keith has spent laying his hands on Shiro, Shiro has never had cause to touch him back. He’s watched him, of course, passively memorizing the little details found in seeing him so close so often: the curious tint of his irises; the few scars that pepper his sinewy forearms, faint enough to blend into the tone of his skin; the little mole at the base of his nape, only visible when his hair is tied up or braided.

Now, he has so much of Keith to drink in all at once, from the defined, kissable curve along his clavicle to the lean shadows of definition along his abdomen.

For a moment, Keith’s whole body bows in a graceful arc as he leans to one side, thighs firmly anchored around Shiro as he stretches toward the nightstand. And as he rummages through the drawer, Shiro gives into the temptation to drag his hand up the taut, elegant curve of Keith’s left side.

There’s a ticklish shiver under his palm, and then the faintest twitching of muscle as Keith draws up a glossy bottle and slams the drawer shut, the rest of its contents clunking together.

As Keith shifts back into place, his weight getting comfortable over Shiro’s middle, Shiro’s hand drifts back down to cup along the narrowness of his waist. He thumbs at a faint little scar just under Keith’s ribs, wondering if it came from his stint as a mercenary or something else entirely. 

He’d like to know, one day. It doesn’t have to now, or even soon. But in time, Shiro would like to know everything about Keith, every inch of himself that he’s willing to share.

The bottle drops somewhere onto the bed, unneeded for now. Keith covers Shiro’s hand with his own, pressing encouraging it to inch higher and feel across his chest. He’s got definition of his own, hewn leaner than Shiro but no doubt just as strong. His heat radiates through the palm of Shiro’s hand; the warm beat of Keith’s pulse grows stronger the higher Shiro edges, passing over his heart and up to the hollow of his throat.

“Thought about this a lot,” Shiro says, letting his fingers trail down Keith’s front, mesmerized by the way he reacts to the touch— in quickening breaths and a light shudder, muscle firming and flexing in anticipation.

It’s not all he’s thought about, either. On late, lonely lights after their sessions, Shiro had spent frantic minutes getting himself off to thought of what he might do with Keith, if granted the chance. Leaving a trail of kisses down his sweaty nape. Putting his fingers in that dark, feathery hair and tugging Keith to the right angle as their mouth meet. Lifting him up by the waist and pinning him to a wall, squeezed tight by the legs coiled around him.

And being straddled? Shiro had always pictured it happening on the floor of his studio apartment, atop the yoga mat he usually stands on when Keith comes over, but this… this is better.

Keith laughs, short and soft, and slides backward down the length of Shiro’s body. There’s a deliberate downward push as his hips pass over Shiro’s, his smile curling sharper at the deep groan that reverberates through Shiro.

“I did, too,” Keith says as he rests his weight on Shiro’s thighs, his hands smoothing their way down to frame hips clad in thin cotton-blend. “It’s embarrassing, probably, how much I thought about you. And how one of your thighs is as big around as my waist.”

“It’s not embarrassing,” Shiro says, a blush working its way up his chest at the admission. “It’s adorable. And are they really? I mean, I know they’re a little thicker than most—”

“Shiro,” Keith flatly interrupts, as if he can’t stand the thought of _anyone_ downplaying the impressive size of Shiro’s thighs, “I’ve handled them enough to know exactly how big they are _and_ how much I want them to crush me.” 

“Okay, okay,” Shiro relents, cheeks aching from the stretch of his smile. He beams up at Keith, open in his hopeless endearment. “You’re the expert.”

“Thank you,” Keith murmurs, ducking his head to hide his own grin. The hands on Shiro’s hips slide forward, fingers curling into the waistband of Shiro’s shorts. He clears his throat. “Want to get these out of the way?”

Shiro nods, his lips moving in a whispered string of, “Yes, yes, yes, _yes."_

“Good. Me, too,” Keith nearly growls as he rolls them halfway down Shiro’s thighs, letting the hard, heavy length of his cock loose.

It lays warm against Shiro’s lower belly, curving slightly to the right, and suddenly he feels like he’s on display. Not the way he feels in the ring, sized up and given odds for betting, for the hungry eyes of his opponents to rake over for weakness, for soft spots to strike harder. No, not like that.

Like he’s offering himself up, eager and willing. Like he’s _wanted,_ and not just for the usual violent, base purposes. The way Keith looks at him— how he touches him, how he cares— is worlds apart from everything Shiro has grown inured to.

Keith sighs at the sight of him fully exposed, hand crawling up Shiro’s thigh in a familiar, luxuriating stroke. It doesn’t stop short this time, though.

Keith cups under Shiro’s balls, teasingly testing their weight, and then palms his way up the underside of Shiro’s aching dick. Slim, deft fingers circle around the thickness of its shaft. His cock looks even plumper in Keith’s hand, somehow. Bigger. Heavier with need.

The first stroke has Shiro’s hips squirming and his prosthetic fingers curling into Keith’s thigh, a shuddering moan barely held at bay. It’s a gentle squeeze, akin to the touch he knows from many hours spent under Keith’s skilled hands, only this is heightened beyond imagining. It’s six months’ worth of stifled sexual tension finally being given some worthwhile release, and the relief is intense enough that Shiro is sure his knees would buckle, if he were standing.

“Good?” Keith asks, his voice pitched low and husky. He gently wrings his hand around the head of Shiro’s cock, the calluses along his palm deliciously rough over delicate skin.

“Yes,” Shiro barely manages to whimper back, his eyes briefly fluttering closed. It’s all he can focus on, really— the curl of Keith’s hand around him, his fingers just shy of meeting, and the sweet build of arousal under his touch. “ _So good,_ Keith. You’ve, ah, outdone yourself.”

Keith bites his bottom lip in a smile and rolls the pad of his thumb along the underside of Shiro’s crown, unbothered by the metal fingers digging sharper into his thigh. He repeats the motion again and again, until Shiro’s mouth falls open and a room-filling moan slips out.

“Mm. Good to hear you make some noise for once,” Keith says, returning to long, firm strokes up his length. “You don’t have to keep it down, you know. I like knowing you like it.”

That alone is enough to make Shiro keen under his practiced touch, months of bitten-back groans and sighs all getting their voice now. And when Keith pops the cap of that bottle with a thumb and dribbles a generous line of lube all down Shiro’s length, each pass of his hand smearing it all over, Shiro’s breaths go needily shallow; the salacious slickness of Keith’s touch rapidly stokes the heated pressure stirring low in Shiro’s gut, promising that he’ll spill himself all over Keith’s hand soon enough.

Until Keith’s hand gives him a firm squeeze at his base, palming over his balls after, and withdraws.

Shiro keeps from whining at the sudden lack of contact, but only just. Weakly, he lifts his head and watches as Keith rises up on his knees, his slim chest heaving.

There’s a spot of dark wetness on the front of Keith’s joggers, with the faint imprint of a thinly clothed erection not far behind. His thumbs hook into his waistband and push them clear down, his flushed cock bobbing as Keith wrests his pants all the way off.

“Sorry,” Keith breathes out as he kicks the joggers aside, heedless of where they fall on his bedroom floor. “Just a sec.”

“Take your time,” Shiro murmurs, though it’s clear neither of them want that.

Shiro wants to come by Keith’s touch, to roll them over and wrap his lips around Keith’s cock in turn. He wants to make Keith feel as good as he’s ever done for Shiro, and then some.

There’s a shuffle as Keith inches himself forward on his knees, a hand splayed over Shiro’s ribcage as he hovers above Shiro’s hips. He reaches behind himself to take Shiro’s cock in hand again, only this time, it’s to press its curved, tapered tip between his cheeks, sticky-slick as it rubs against the rim of his hole.

“Ah,” Shiro sighs, concern for Keith punching through the lusty haze that fills his head with urgent, incessant need to fuck Keith good, to fill him up, to push his hips down until he’s squirming on his cock and crying for more. 

“Are you— I’m a little big, Keith. We should— _fuck,_ ” he bites out as the head of his cock suddenly slips into that tight ring of muscle, Keith flexing around him, “get you ready for me, first.”

“You’re _very_ big,” Keith corrects in ragged pants, licking his lips. He holds Shiro’s dick firmly in place at the right angle and slides down a little at a time, taking his girth with surprising ease. “And I’m plenty ready. You— when you texted me, I was kind of… in the middle of taking care of myself.”

Shiro groans, as much from the thought of Keith answering his messages while toying with himself as from the satisfaction of Keith confidently sitting himself down on his dick, as if it was exactly what he’d been preparing for.

Keith hisses through the last inch or two, his whole frame shuddering through the stretch, the pressure, the enormity of the piece of Shiro held within him. And, after almost no wait at all, he starts to roll his hips— just enough to slide an inch in or out, at first, and then in a motion that pulls him halfway off of Shiro’s cock before sinking back down to its stem.

And as good as it feels to have the slick, warm friction of Keith’s walls around him, the crux of Shiro’s pleasure is in watching Keith enjoy it even more.

His body gleams with a sheen of sweat under the low light, his thighs trembling with the effort of the rhythm he’s set for himself. Strands of long hair catch on his pretty wet lips and his open mouth; they plaster to his forehead and hang over the deep, dark intensity of his eyes. His brows pinch as they draw upward and inward. And he makes sounds like nothing Shiro’s ever heard out of him before— high, punched-out cries and low, rumbling growls, fierce as he chases the pleasure he’s been denying himself for months, too.

Keith’s cock slaps down against Shiro’s belly with every sharp drop of his hips, leaving glistening spots of thin precum on Shiro’s skin. It’s a lovely one, as far as cocks go. Handsomely shaped, flushed nice and pretty, the perfect size to fill a hand or a mouth.

Shiro wets his lips at the thought of Keith’s taste. The weight on his tongue. The way Keith would nudge down into the back of his throat, with Shiro’s nose pressed into the thick, coarse hair that curls above it.

For now, he reaches out to wrap a hand around Keith’s dick instead, hating the thought of leaving Keith even a little neglected.

“No,” Keith pants, pushing Shiro’s hand away. At the little look of confusion he’s met with, the worry of making a misstep, he flashes a quick, breathless smile and rumbles out, “I’d rather see you touch yourself, Shiro. Please. For me.”

Shiro’s whole body tingles at the gently given command, more than willing to do anything Keith asks. He brings his hands up to either side of his chest, fingers fanned. At the little moan of approval from Keith, still riding his hips, Shiro draws his middle and rings fingers over his nipples— circling them, brushing over their nubs with the pads of his fingers, pinching them between his digits until they’re dark and firm from the attention.

And then Shiro cups underneath his pecs and pushes them together, the muscle bunching in two rounded swells that partially block his view of Keith.

A low, appeased moan still carries his way, though.

With an abrupt shift of his hips, Keith leans forward and bends low, his dick dragging a heated, faintly sticky line down Shiro’s lower belly. He swoops in just long enough to sink his mouth closed around the nipple of one of Shiro’s pushed-up pecs, laying a broad stroke over the well-teased nub with the flat of his tongue.

And then Keith reels back with a satisfied half-grin, the tip of his tongue gliding along the corner of his mouth, and rolls his hips back into their previous rhythm.

The warm saliva on Shiro’s skin cools as he spreads it over his chest in slow, deliberate swirls, his prosthetic fingers glinting with sweat and spit; Shiro holds Keith’s stare the whole time, lips parted as he pants though the steady throbbing of his cock as Keith rocks into him harder, faster, spurred by the way Shiro fondles himself.

Shiro comes before he can even breathe a word of warning to Keith, the onset of it so blindingly sudden and intense that all he can do is cling to himself and the bedspread and make soundless cries as Keith only slows, but never stops.

Every emptying spurt makes Shiro’s hips buck and his toes curl, and all of it pours right into Keith. Deep, too. And as Shiro blissfully melts down into the mattress, utterly spent, he’s taken aback to see that Keith is still hard and unfinished.

“Keith—”

“I wanted to get you off first,” Keith tells him, a reddened blush spread over his cheeks as he takes Shiro’s hand and guides it to his full, heavy-hanging cock. “I wanted to watch you through every second of it. And now I want to feel you, Shiro,” he whispers.

Keith whimpers softly as Shiro’s prosthetic fingers form a fist around his length, his hand nearly big enough to swallow Keith up. His stomach flexes as Shiro pumps up and down his cock, gently twisting his wrist with every pass; his hips move just enough to push himself into Shiro’s hand, down onto his lap. There’s no real thrusting to it— just Shiro’s thick, softening cock shifting around deep inside of Keith, its weight a steady pressure working against his walls.

There’s extra slip from the come seeping down around Shiro’s length, filling all the little gaps between them. It gets messy where it eventually spills out in sticky strings that spread between them. And with a few upward rolls of Shiro’s hips, jolting Keith harder into the coil of his hand, Keith shoots a warm string of come across Shiro’s chest and dribbles more down the stack of his fingers.

Keith’s shoulders slump afterward, breath leaving him in a heavy, satisfied sigh. He trembles as he lifts himself off of Shiro and flops down beside him, breathing hard.

For a minute, there’s just quiet. And then Keith asks, “Are you up for more?”

Shiro laughs, caught off-guard. Keith rolls onto his side, cheek resting on Shiro’s shoulder and a hand inching onto his chest, a finger toying with the come still cooling on Shiro’s skin.

“In the morning, sure,” he says, rubbing at a sleepy eye with the heel of his palm. “If I hadn’t already gone five rounds with Sendak earlier,” Shiro mildly complains, nonetheless pleased with how everything has turned out. “I’m beat.”

“In the morning, then,” Keith says, smiling against Shiro’s skin.

Shiro is looking forward to it. “In the morning,” he promises, smiling back.

Keith kicks down the covers so they can both wriggle underneath, sweaty and messy atop the sheets together. And to Shiro’s surprise, it isn’t awkward at all to squeeze himself in at Keith’s side. It isn’t strange to spend the rest of the night— and the whole morning, too— in a bed that isn’t his own. Not if it’s Keith’s.

“You could’ve put me out of my misery sooner, you know,” Shiro murmurs as sleep starts to creep in, a soft pout forming. “If it was so obvious the whole time.”

“I mean, sometimes people can’t help it. Having, uh, a reaction,” Keith says, putting it mildly. His sleepy, contented smile slowly goes uncertain. “And I wasn’t sure… I mean, I was a little intimidated to make a move.”

“Intimidated?” Shiro questions, surprise flitting across his features. A crease grows between his brows, hesitant as he asks, “Because of the fighting?”

“Because you’re so _pretty,”_ Keith says back, giving Shiro a look of soft exasperation. “And… big. Strong. Sweet. Figured you were out of my league, maybe.”

 _“Out of your league?”_ Shiro huffs, scoffs, grapples with the ludicrousness of it. Under the covers, he curls an arm around Keith’s waist and pulls him close, rolling onto his side to spoon against him. “Keith… that’s not even possible. If anything, you’re out of mine.”

“No, I’m not,” Keith immediately protests, smiling at Shiro’s affectionate hold. His hand finds Shiro’s and covers it with his own, thumb stroking over Shiro’s knuckle. “Don’t say stuff like that.”

Shiro hums quiet agreement in his ear. “Okay. We’re in the same league, then.”

“Good.” Keith sighs, content with the decision and the warmth of Shiro’s body at his back, faintly sticky where they’re pressed together.

Minutes trail by. Slowly, the both ease into more comfortable positions, arranging themselves together for their first night spent side-by-side— the first of many like it, Shiro hopes, if he can hold on to one good thing in his life.

With sleep-lowered inhibitions, he draws up his hand and runs his fingers through Keith’s hair, mesmerized by the slip of the long, ink-dark strands, the way they spill around his touch like ripples in water. It feels better than he’d dreamed it would. Silky. Intimate. Luxurious to the touch.

“Mm. Don’t stop,” Keith mumbles, his eyes still closed.

Shiro can’t help but smile, pleased to have stumbled onto something Keith enjoys. “You like that?”

“I love it,” Keith sighs into his pillow, lips curved into a drowsy smile. “Been forever since anyone played with my hair.”

Shiro rakes his fingers through Keith’s hair and gathers it up, nose buried in dark, sweat-dampened strands as he leaves a column of kisses down the back of his neck. And then he toys with it for minutes more, winding locks around his fingers and lightly running fingernails over Keith’s scalp— until Keith’s breaths even out and his expression goes slack with sleep, pretty under the gold-tinged glow of the string lights.

And only then does Shiro stop, slipping his arm back around Keith’s waist as he nestles closer into him. Sleep comes easy, no aches or pains left to follow him into slumber— only the warmth and dreamy comfort of having Keith in his arms.


End file.
